


Quietly Waiting

by bigblueboxat221b



Series: Speaking in Tongues [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: British Sign Language, M/M, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, sherlock needs a push
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9388235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigblueboxat221b/pseuds/bigblueboxat221b
Summary: Harry Watson comes over for a quick cuppa. Weird, right?





	

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read any of the previous stories in this series, this is for you. Otherwise feel free to skip the notes.
> 
> Things you need to know:  
> BSL = British Sign Language  
> Harry Watson is deaf. She, John and Sherlock are fluent in BSL.  
> There are specific references to the previous stories [P-o-i-n-t-P-r-o-v-e-n](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8998990), [Unexpected Roots](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9144706), [Delirium](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9297284) and [Already Gone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9348662). If you haven't read any others, read these to make this more sense.
> 
> Thanks for reading.

The footfalls coming up the stairs were unfamiliar, and as they had not been accompanied by the ringing of the doorbell but by John’s familiar tread, it made Sherlock sit up. He was dressed, technically, though pajamas were not ‘outside clothes’, as John put it.

He looked to the door to see Harry precede John in, looking around curiously. She had met Sherlock just the once, when he had come for information about the childhood she and John had shared, and according to her current interest in the sitting room of Baker Street, John had never brought her here.

“Hi,” he waved, and she returned the greeting.

“Be nice,” John warned Sherlock in BSL behind Harry’s back, and he rolled his eyes dramatically.

“John’s being overprotective, isn’t he?” she asked and Sherlock nodded.

John had missed the interaction as he hung up their coats, and he appeared now, signing brightly, “Tea?”

Sherlock and Harry both nodded, and John disappeared into the kitchen.

“So?” Harry asked.

Sherlock said, “What?”

She didn’t bother signing, the look on her face saying, ‘you know what.’

“He doesn’t know, but things are changing. Slowly,” Sherlock signed, and she grinned.

“That’s John’s only speed,” Harry told him, and he laughed out loud.

“What?” John called.

Sherlock replied, calling to the kitchen, “Nothing!” He translated for Harry, who gave him a thumbs up of understanding.

“It’s always something,” John grumbled as he entered, placing the tea tray down and signing the same to his sister, who looked very unconvincing as an innocent.

Sherlock poured tea for them all, and John perched on the arm of his chair, his fingers absently rubbing over the back of Sherlock’s neck as he reached for the biscuits.

Harry met Sherlock’s eyes, who actually blushed, and she giggled.

John looked at her, at the reddened face of Sherlock, who was juggling his tea and biscuit and trying to hide his face at the same time. “You two are as thick as thieves,” he accused them both, but neither commented. Silence fell as they each drank their tea, Sherlock and Harry deliberately occupying their hands so they could avoid signing.

+++

Sherlock was thinking of the last time he saw Harry. He had been trying to solve a John puzzle and he figured Harry was the best place to start, so he invited himself over to her flat.

“I’m S-h-e-r-l-o-c-k,” he had introduced himself, and the fact that he was signing fluently, coupled with his unusual name, meant Harry invited him in immediately. They had talked at length about the John puzzle, Harry outlining the story.

Afterwards, when Sherlock had stood to leave, she said, “He never tells anyone that story. Why you?”

“He didn’t exactly tell me, Harry,” Sherlock replied, but the tilt of her head and the look on her face were the same as John when he didn’t believe Sherlock.

“He knew you could work it out. He thinks you hung the moon, Sherlock,” Sherlock frowned at that, not understanding the idiom.

Harry said, “You know what I mean. Be careful, Sherlock. He’s stubborn, and loyal to a fault, but neither of those things will make him happy. Not the way you could, if you wanted to.” Harry had seen Sherlock’s heart long before he had known it himself.

As for the ‘hung the moon’ phrase, Sherlock wasn’t exactly sure what Harry had meant, so he had looked up the idiom on the way home. John had known he could figure it out - so was it a test to see if he _would_ figure it out, if John was worth the effort? Of course he was, anyone could tell him that. Perhaps Sherlock didn’t tell him, though, so he didn’t know. How could he not know how important he was to Sherlock?

This sobering thought was what carried him through the doors that day to talk to John about his story. It had influenced Sherlock’s behavior around John from that day onwards. And then the delirium, and then the dancing…

+++

“Harry didn’t believe me when I told her you learned the finger spelling in fifteen minutes,” John told Sherlock, finally putting his teacup down on the mantle behind him. He turned from watching John to looking at Harry, who raised her eyebrows in a ‘well?’ expression.

“i-t-s-t-r-u-e,” he spelled without putting down his cup.

Harry looked impressed, replying, “i-m-p-r-e-s-s-i-v-e”.

He inclined his head to say, ‘thank you.’

John rolled his eyes and moved into the kitchen in search of more biscuits.

In his absence, Harry and Sherlock had a conversation in blistering BSL.

“Hurt him and I’ll kill you,” Harry started, smiling.

“I know,” Sherlock replied, unperturbed.

“Why has this taken so long?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” she asked.

Sherlock frowned a little, then answered, “No. But John does, and I trust him.”

Harry nodded and replied, “He’s a good man. Slow, but I can see you’ve realised he makes you happy.” She paused, then added, “You make him happy, too, Sherlock. Can you see it?”

He looked a little pained at this, and asked hesitantly, “Do I? How can I tell? He’d lie if I asked him and he wasn’t.”

She nodded, answering before he had even finished. “I have seen him at his worst, Sherlock, and at his happiest.” She leaned in, emphasising her words. “This is his happiest. With you.”

Sherlock looked stunned at this, and a little disbelieving. 

Harry shook her head exasperatedly, and rose as John entered the room. “I have to go,” She signed.

John looked bewildered. “We’ve barely talked!”

“There’s been enough talking,” Harry said, though she was looking at Sherlock.

John shrugged and helped Harry into her coat. As he was behind her, she finger spelled for Sherlock, “k-i-s-s-h-i-m-n-o-w” then winked, kissed her brother and left.

Sherlock was still a little distracted, though her words would stay with him. John had returned to sit in his own seat, and Sherlock, with a sudden burst of conviction, moved to sit on the arm of John’s chair, one hand winding inside his collar to cup the back of his neck.

As John tilted his head to look up, Sherlock’s face lowered to meet his, the lightest of kisses joining their lips for only a second before they parted. Sherlock’s face hovered over John’s, uncertain how he would be received, until John’s hand snaked around his own neck, pulling him down into another kiss, this one firmer, lips sliding over lips. Finally, Sherlock sat up, John releasing him, and John smiled at Sherlock with such intense happiness that Sherlock could not fail to miss it.


End file.
